Pages

Sunday, May 22, 2016

It begins on an early Sunday afternoon when my flight lands in
Phoenix, Arizona. I am waiting for my luggage when I hear it—the unmistakable
voices of Black women followed by laughter--not loud and obnoxious, but the rich
laughter of women on the verge of an adventure. Without really knowing, I know
we are probably headed to the same destination—the Sedona Resort and Spa.

I am right. The women on the Shuttle (except for one) are
all headed to the same place. We are on a Southwest Journey going to Sedona to
spend a few days then traveling by train to Santa Fe, New Mexico for the second
leg of our trip. We are part of the Literary Sisters, a group founded by Ruth
Bridges, which brings women together from all over the United States who share
a love a of reading and traveling. Two authors, Phyllis Dixon, Down Home Blues, and Raynetta Manees, All For Love—The Superstar’s Lady join
us to discuss their books.

The women in this group come from all walks of life. And
there is something special about traveling with them. We share cultural experiences
which bond us. We make jokes or just talk about a multitude of issues and there
is a nod of understanding without having to explain ourselves. There is a Sunday dinner kind of comfort. What I
especially like is that we are who we are—unashamedly and unapologetically
Black women. This is not an easy feat in a world that does not always respect
women and girls, and people of color—and we are both.

And while we may share the same race and gender, our lived
experiences differ which make for lively conversation. We are thought
provoking; we are naughty; we are funny. We are educated. We are talented. We
are gorgeous. We are wise . . . and the list goes on. It is a trip filled with fun
and laughter from beginning to end!

When 30+ African-American women converge on one place, that
place is never the same! After the initial shock of seeing so many of us
together, the cats give the people back their tongues and a thousand and one
questions come tumbling out, Where are
you from? What’s the occasion? What’s the last good book you read? What are you
reading now? And no matter where we go, we have questions of our own for
the tour guides. They need to know their stuff. Many of us have done our homework before we’ve come. We are a
force to be reckoned with no doubt.

There is a hash tag, #blackgirlmagic#
which celebrates all of the ways Black women and girls continue to thrive
in a world set against us. I read many of the stories associated with the blackgirlmagic hash tag, and it’s
wonderful to read these stories. But what’s even better, is to be in the room
and watch blackgirlmagic unfold. That
is what happened in Sedona and Santa Fe. We brought the magic to every place we
showed up, and we also shared that magic with each other.

Over dinner, or during plane rides and train rides, we
gather and talk about everything under the sun. We share stories; we laugh. And
we learn. We leave richer than we came, and many of us will come back again. We create blackgirlmagic in real time.

What
about you? Do you believe in magic? Tell us about your magical experience in
the comment section.

Author's note: We spend a great deal of time complaining, worrying and regretting which can cast shadows over our blessings. Today I am taking the time to look beyond the clouds directly into the sun that is pouring into my life. Today I am squinting at the brightness of it all. Today I am feeling the warmth, and I'm thankful.

Monday, May 9, 2016

The food is put away, and the last guests are gone. Another
Mother’s Day done. My mother had a great Mother’s Day. A simple woman, she
doesn’t ask for much. She wants to see our faces. She likes cards (with money
in them) and flowers. The table is filled
with vases of flowers, and the cards are tucked under her pillow for later reading.

Mother’s Day is celebrated the second Sunday in May to honor
the women who are mothers. It is the 4th highest grossing holiday. An
article posted on CNBC Business News Financial website estimated spending for
Mother’s Day in 2010 at $14.88 billion.
We don’t mess around when it comes to our Mamas.

Mother’s Day also serves as a reminder to women like me who
are not mothers that we don’t quite measure up because we are not members of
the Mothers’ Club. We still live under the notion that every woman should be a
mother. Yes, there are honorary awards for the “other” mothers in our lives,
but the top awards go to Mothers. Even “bad” mothers get a plug on Mother’s
Day.

It’s not to say that mothers don’t deserve recognition; they
most definitely do. Parenting is a difficult job, and not for the faint of
heart. Every woman that can be a
mother should be a mother we are
told. But membership should require more than a functioning uterus. And we
should recognize that many of us love celebrating mothers, the holiday is not a
joyous one for everyone.

While many people love Mother’s Day, there are those who
loath it. My neighbor was sitting out on her porch, and I wished her a Happy
Mother’s Day. She asked me if I had another joke. At first I didn’t get it,
then it dawned on me. None of her children or grandchildren had even bothered
to visit her for the day. My sister and another neighbor took her plates so she’d
have something to eat.

For every Happy Mother’s Day uttered with good intention,
there are countless women struggling with the holiday for any number of
reasons: some are fighting infertility, some have mothers who have passed away,
some are the mothers of children who have passed away, and some are the
children of mothers who were the carriers for their children being here and nothing
more. And some children, like my
neighbor’s, don’t honor their parents.

What’s especially ironic about the Mother’s Day hoopla is
the history behind it. The founder of the holiday
as we know it in the United States was not a mother, and rallied against the commercialization
of the original intent of Mother’s Day. In
the 1850s Ann Reeves Jarvis set up Mother’s Day Work Clubs to improve sanitary
conditions, reduce infant mortality and later help wounded soldiers al civil
war. She later created a Mother’s Friendship Day.

After Anne Reeves Jarvis passed away, her daughter Anna
Jarvis organized the first formal Mother’s Day in 1908 to honor her mother. It
was a small event celebrated in churches in her hometown. Jarvis wrote to
clergy men, politicians and educators encouraging them to recognize the day. In
1914, President Woodrow Wilson declared the first official Mother’s Day. Its
popularity grew, and retailers seized the
moment by selling greeting cards and flowers to honor mothers.

Jarvis hated what Mother’s Day had become, and spent the
rest of her life fighting against the holiday. She never married nor had children.
So, it’s funny because those of us outside the club can take solace in the
fact, that the founder of Mother’s Day was an outsider, too.

What are your thoughts on mothers and/or Mother’s Day?
Please feel free to share in the comment section.

Sunday, May 1, 2016

My sister has poor night vision. She wanted to take some
girls to see The Little Mermaid
performed live. So, I agreed to be the designated driver for the evening. It
was another dateless Saturday night for me, so why not?

It was cold and rainy Saturday, but that didn’t stop people
from coming out. The parking lot was full. Families dodged raindrops as they
ran for cover in the theater to see the tale Ariel, the mermaid who falls in
love with a human. According to folklore, a mermaid is part human, part fish.
Mermaids are known for their beautiful, alluring voices, and also for shaking things
up in the form of tornadoes, and floods and such.

We settle into our seats, and a group of men came and sat in
the row in front of us. One of the men was dressed like Ariel complete with
flowers in his flowing red hair, an aqua necklace and a bra in the shape of a
two sea-shells covering the chest. He/She had on a long, floral skirt. I guess
he/she is a big fan of Ariel. And true to the mermaid’s legend, he/she was
definitely shaking things up!

On the way home, the girls were happily chattering in the
back about the show, when the subject of the man/woman or woman/man—I can’t
remember exactly what they said. There was a past-the due-date pregnant pause
in the car. Neither my sister nor I said anything. Transgendered people don’t
bother me. I’ve been to quite a few shows with female impersonators, and I had
a great time. So, it would be hypocritical of me to act as though the mermaid’s
presence offended me; it didn’t.

My sister and I listened as the girls talked. These were children
unrelated to us. Two of the girls were the grandchildren of my sister’s friend,
and the other girl is my niece’s stepdaughter. Knowing how strongly people feel
about where transgendered people pee, it was not a conversation, I wanted to
have. My opinion is one thing, but I have to respect how people choose to raise
their children. The girls made some comments about the mermaid’s attire, and
then they went on to debate which of Ariel’s sister was their favorite and if
the boy who played Flounder was cute.

The girls’ conversation made me think of how much we project
our thoughts and feelings onto children. Growing up, one of my friends had a
flamboyantly gay uncle. His “gayness” was never an issue because as children we
never talked about it. He was—as they used to say back then—a sissy, but I don’t
remember it being said in a judgmental way. It wasn’t until I got older that I
begin to understand how people who we see as “different” from us are treated.

The girls knew the mermaid was a man/woman, but it didn’t
matter. She was not the focal point of their conversation. They enjoyed the
play and that’s all that mattered. There are lessons we can learn from children
about how to get along in the world.

This picture has been circulating
on social media. I read a caption that said: Learning to be a player early punctuatedby a smiley face emoticon. Some think it’s cute; not me.

A triangle has three sides. For
the purpose of this blog, a triangle is three people involved in a
relationship. Now, I don’t think that the children in this photo are in any
type of “relationship”, but I do think that this picture speaks volumes on how
we view relationships. The actions are indicative
of what these children may do when they are old enough to date and/or marry. We
are teaching children early that triangling is ok.

The little boy is situated between
two girls. One of the girls has her arm possessively wrapped around him. The
message is clear: He’s mine! Her back is to the other little girl, so she doesn’t
even know that he is in a sense “playing her” because he’s not really all hers.
The second little girl is content to hold his hand--to just be in the picture
somewhere.

We teach boys how play between
girls, and we support them. We lie and cover for them all the time. I know a
woman who was dating a man. He took her to meet his father. Her guy said he and
his father shared a house. One day, her guy dropped his checkbook in her car.
When she looked at it, it had a man and
woman’s name on it. She couldn’t believe that he was married, so she did a
drive-by and found out that not only was he married, his wife was also
pregnant. Why did the father lie for his son? The father claimed that he could
see how much his son cared for this woman.

The second little girl is a side
chick in training. I’ve said it a thousand times; sometimes the side chick gets
put on blast unfairly. We teach them how to settle for second place and then we
get mad when they do! I know women who tell their daughters and granddaughters
that unless he’s married, no man is off limits. It doesn’t matter if he’s
engaged or living with a woman, unless he’s said, I do, he’s fair game. This really makes me scratch my head because
if he can’t be in a committed relationship before he ties the knot, how is he
expected to do so once he gets married? How does a marriage license change
behavior? I thought practice makes better.

And then there are those who think
that to have a piece of man is better than to have no man at all. I’ve heard
women say that there’s always one going out as another one is coming in, so it stands to reason that at some point, a woman is either going to be the one being cheated on or the one being cheated with. Is monogamy even realistic?

What’s problematic about the
implications in this picture is that it encourages possessive and deceptive behaviors—neither
of which are healthy. Triangling always goes bad because someone gets hurt—mentally,
emotionally and/or physically. Sometimes triangles are deadly. I am still
disturbed by a news story that happened a couple of years ago in Georgia. A man was having an affair with a woman. When
the mistress found out that he was taking his wife on a trip, the mistress
showed up at the house and kidnapped the wife at gun point. The mistress killed
the wife and then turned the gun on herself.

A female who thinks a male belongs
to her will stop at nothing to keep anyone from getting what she has because she
has claimed ownership. (I know the same things applies to males, but we’re talking
about women right now) A woman thinks that the paper, the baby, the fact
that they live together, great sex or empty promises means that he belongs to
her. Confronting another woman doesn’t change his behavior.

To be honest, I have don’t have answers
to any of the questions I’ve raised. I’m trying to understand why we claim to
hate triangling yet we encourage men and women to form these triads. Are love
triangles par for the course? Do you think we encourage these types of
relationships? What did you hear growing up that supported the idea of shared
relationships? Share your thoughts in the comment section.